Nigel Mansell - Mansell - My Autobiography

When the race is over your brain realises that your body is exhausted and can’t move and then you are reminded of the pain. I have been so drained after some races that I have been unable to get out of the car. But my ability to blank out pain has been invaluable throughout my career; indeed I doubt whether I would ever have made it had I not had that ability. I won my first single-seater championship in my first full year despite suffering a broken neck mid-season. I got my big break into Formula 1 in 1979 with a test for Lotus on one of the world’s fastest Grand Prix circuits, Paul Ricard in France, and managed to get the job despite having a broken back at the time.

I even won the 1992 World Championship with a broken foot, which I sustained in the last race of 1991. An operation over that winter would have meant it being in plaster for three months. However, I was determined to get into perfect physical shape and to put in a lot of testing miles in the car to be ready for the following season. So I delayed the operation. I couldn’t tell anyone because if the governing body found out they might have stopped me from racing.

The orthopaedic surgeons thought I was crazy. The foot was badly deformed and after every race that year I could barely walk. Some journalists chose to interpret my limp as play-acting which, in retrospect, is pretty laughable. But then what do they know? None of them have ever driven a modern Grand Prix car flat out for two hours.

If they had they would know that the cockpit is a very hostile environment. The body receives a terrible pummelling during the course of a race from the thousands of shocks which travel up through the steering wheel, the footrest and the seat as you fly along the ground at 200mph. Through the corners the g-forces try to snap your head off. When you brake your insides are thrown forwards with violence, your body gripped by a six-point harness, which pins you into your seat. When you accelerate your head is thrown back violently against the carbon fibre wall at the back of the cockpit, which is the only thing separating you from a 200 litre bag of fuel. On top of that, the cockpit is hotter than a sauna and you are wearing thick fireproof overalls and underwear. The only thing which is in any way designed for comfort is the seat, which is moulded to the driver’s body.

If you have a good car and everything is right, you become at one with the car and it allows you to express yourself. It responds to your commands, goes where you point it and allows you to explore the limits with confidence. You can get into a straight fight with another driver, both pushing your machines to the limits, both determined to win. On days like that, driving a Formula 1 car is magical, another world. The pure essence of competition.

Other days you have to fight the car all the way. You might realise early in a race that your car is not handling properly but you have to try to drive around the problem. The car might catch you out or do something you don’t expect, and this destroys your confidence in it. Everything becomes a struggle, but you fight to stay in the race with your competitors. You must do everything you can to remain competitive. Driving a Grand Prix car hard is always exhausting, but you must not let up or give in to pain until you reach the end. As Ayrton once said, ‘All top Grand Prix drivers are fast, but only a very few of us are always fast.’

I often wonder what life would have been like had I chosen a less dangerous sport. I play golf to quite a high amateur standard and I’m pretty sure that if I had poured the same dedication and focus into it thirty years ago that I poured into racing, I could have made my living from it. Whether I could have reached the same level and got the same rewards, I’m not sure and I will never know. But I think in many ways if I had my time again I would like to find out.

It may sound improbable, but I have had days on the golf course where I have scored back-to-back eagles, or had a round of 65 including half a dozen birdies, and these have been some of the biggest thrills I’ve ever experienced. I love the idea that it’s just you and a set of clubs against the golf course and the elements. It’s a true test and if you get it right the sense of gratification is quite overwhelming. And if, by chance, it all goes wrong and you slice your ball into the trees, you don’t hurt yourself. You just swallow your pride, grab a club and march in after it.

Having said that, I’m glad that motor racing has been my life. It has satisfied my desire to compete and, above all, to win. It has tested my limits and my resolve many times. It has bankrupted me, hospitalised me and some of the disappointments it has inflicted on me have almost broken my heart. It has also robbed me of some good friends.

But all of that is far outweighed by what it has given me. I have had two lifetimes worth of incredible experiences and more memories than if I were a hundred years old. I set out on this long and treacherous journey with nothing, except the belief that I had the talent to beat the best racing drivers in the world.

After a lot of hard work I was able to prove it.

PART ONE

THE SECRET OF SUCCESS

‘I am interested only in success and winning races and if my brain and body did not allow me to be completely committed, I would know that I was wasting my time. The moment I feel that, I will retire on the spot.’

1

MY PHILOSOPHY OF RACING

There are very few people who have any idea what it takes to be successful in this business.

Much of my life has been devoted to the pursuit of the Formula 1 World Championship. I was runner-up three times before I finished the job off in 1992. Yet if circumstances had been different and politics hadn’t intervened, I might also have won a further two World Championships, in 1988 with Williams and in 1990 with Ferrari.

In both cases the essentials were there. The hard work developing the car had been done, but politics dictated that the pendulum should swing away from me. In 1988 Honda quit Williams and dominated the championship with McLaren, while in 1990 Alain Prost joined Ferrari, where we had developed a winning car, and proceeded to work behind the scenes to shift all the team’s support, which I had worked for in 1989, to himself.

Although I consider myself strong in most sporting areas of motor racing, I am a poor politician and there is no doubt that this has accounted for me not winning more races and more championships.

Moreover, these experiences provide an object lesson in just how difficult it is to win a lot of Grands Prix and a World Championship; there is far more to it than simply beating people on the race-track. They also serve as a reminder that nothing in motor racing is ever certain. You might have all the right ingredients in place, the full support of the team, an excellent car, and yet some minor component can let you down or some freak accident, like a wheel nut coming off, can rob you of the prize after you’ve done most of the hard work.

There are no shortcuts to winning the World Championship, but in my fifteen years as a Grand Prix driver I have learned a lot about what it takes to win consistently.

My philosophy of driving a racing car is part and parcel of my philosophy of life. Achievement, success and getting the job done in every area of life, not just in the cockpit, are fundamental to my way of thinking. Everything has to be right. Whether it’s getting to the golf club on time or having the right pasta to eat before a race, the demand for perfection everywhere is critical.

MOTIVATION IS THE KEY

Winning at the highest level of motor sport is not like winning in athletics or tennis or golf. In those sports you have just yourself to motivate. In motor sport, you require a huge team and huge resources and it is incredibly difficult to get it all to gel at the same time, to hit the sweet spot. Everything has to come together in unison.